Tuesday, March 27, 2012

I
figured I should say something official about Tekkoshocon and the
Wyndham Grand Downtown Pittsburgh. Effective 26 March 2012 Tekkoshocon
and the Wyndham Grand Downtown Pittsburgh have parted ways. We have
agreed that our business and their facility do not work well together.
As such Tekkoshocon will no longer be utilizing the Wyndham Grand
Downtown Pittsburgh for any official Tekkoshocon Inc. events.

We wish the management and company well.

We are currently investigating this. Negotiations for a venue may
take several weeks or months to complete. We want you to join us next
year so we will let you know the minute we can. Please be patient.

Why were Artists' Alley and gaming in smaller rooms?

Midway through the year, after several guests were already booked, we
were informed by the Wyndham that the King's Garden (those rooms you
saw by the elevators, where Artists' Alley was last year) would not be
available to us due to construction. We had two choices at this point:
work with the space or cancel Tekko. We put Artists' Alley into the next
biggest space the hotel had to offer and moved the rest of our layout
in order to accomodate every other department that got displaced. The
fourth floor was not ideal for anyone, but the activities of
RPG/CCG/Video Gaming were able to be segmented into the space while a
panel room or Artists' Alley could not.

What happened Saturday night?

At 2:15 AM we were approached by the hotel and asked to end all
programming and have our guests leave the common floors by 3 AM. The
stated consequence was that individuals would be removed from the hotel.
We know it was very disappointing that panels, videos, and the dance
got cut short and we apologize for the inconvenience. We would like to
thank those who were on the floor for your friendly cooperation. You
reminded us why we love you so much! <3

I was at Tekkoshocon this weekend and I fully support Jim's decision in this matter. The hotel management, staff and design are not suited to handle an anime convention. It should be interesting to see what venue in the Pittsburgh area they end up in.

Japan's Asahi Shimbum newspaper has posted an obituary for anime
industry veteran Noboru Ishiguro, who passed away at age 73. In 1963,
while still a student, Ishiguro started in the business working on the
original mecha series, Tetsujin 28. In the 70s he graduated into directing the Space Battleship Yamato series and went on to helm landmarks of the 80s, including the anime movie retelling of Macross, Do You Remember Love?, in addition to Megazone 23 and the 1980 remake of Astro Boy. American watchers of Nickelodeon at the time might remember his children's show Noozles, created in response to Japan's mid-80s koala craze.

Our condolences to his wife, Yumi, his friends and colleagues on their loss.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

We
know that the area of Mexico City has one of the largest groups of
Robotech fans in Latin America and we hope that they are all safe!

We are thankful to hear from Mr. Jesús Barrero that he and his studio are safe.
Sabemos que el área de la Ciudad de México tiene uno de los mayores
grupos de fans de Robotech y esperamos que todos ellos están a salvo!

(AP) Strong, long 7.4 quake shakes Mexico City

By KATHERINE CORCORANAssociated Press

MEXICO CITYA
strong 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit Mexico on Tuesday, shaking central
and southern parts of the country, sending a pedestrian bridge crashing
atop a transit bus and swaying high-rises in Mexico City. At least one
building in the capital appeared on the verge of collapse.

More
than 60 homes were damaged near the epicenter in Ometepec in southern
Guerrero state, though there were no reports of death or serious injury.
Fear and panic spread as a less powerful, magnitude-5.1 aftershock was
also felt in the capital, where there were also no reports of deaths.

Other aftershocks were felt around the borders of Oaxaca and Guerrero states close to the epicenter.

"It was very strong, very substantial," Campos Benitez, hospital director in Ometepec.

Police
radio operator Marcos Marroquin said there were preliminary reports of
60 houses damaged in the municipality but only a report of a broken arm.

In
Mexico City, frightened workers and residents poured into the streets
of the capital just minutes after noon local time (18:02 GMT). Telephone
service was down in the city and throughout the area where the quake
was felt, and some neighborhoods were without power, according to Mexico
City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, who set up a hotline for people to report
damage.

[snip]

In Huajuapan, Guerrero, near the epicenter, hotel owner Marco Antonio
Estrada also reported shaken-up guests but no major damage. He said it
was the longest and strongest earthquake he had ever felt and people ran
out of their homes and cars.

"It was very strong, but we didn't
see anything fall," said Irma Ortiz, who runs a guesthouse in Oaxaca.
She said their telephones were down, and that the quake shook them
side-to-side.

The U.S. Geological Survey set the preliminary
magnitude of the first quake at 7.4 and said the epicenter was 11 miles
underground. The survey set the aftershock at 5.1.

U.S. President Barack Obama's oldest daughter, Malia, was reported safe while on vacation with a school group in Oaxaca.

Groups
of women hugged and cried at Mexico City's Angel of Independence
monument, where hundreds of people evacuated from office buildings said
they had never felt such a strong earthquake. Others typed ferociously
on their Blackberries.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Starting at 9 a.m. tomorrow the Robotech.com website will be down for maintenance. This should take most of the day so do not panic if the website is unavailable. The Robotech Facebook Page and the Robotech Twitter News Feed will operational during the maintenance period.

Congratulations
to Marcus Devine of Georgia and Angela Barroa Orellana of the
Philippines, who have been selected to receive The Masters Saga DVD sets
from A&E. Followers of our Facebook and Twitter pages can check
back again next week when we announce another new giveaway item for our
next drawing!

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Harmony Gold, in association with
Universal Animation, is pleased to announce that the Robotech Convention Tour
will return to the Garden State for AnimeNEXT, New Jersey’s largest anime
convention.

AnimeNEXT is the largest independently organized anime convention in the New
York/New Jersey metropolitan area. AnimeNEXT 2012 is June 8-10th at the Garden
State Expo Center & DoubleTree Somerset Hotel in Somerset, New Jersey. The convention
is held on a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

The convention features Japanese creators of anime and manga, voice actors from
anime series, Japanese musical acts, artists, vendors and exhibits, panels,
workshops, and gaming. Events all focus on aspects of anime, manga, and
Japanese culture.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

The 2012 Robotech Convention
Tour returns to the Buckeye state for MasturiCon in Columbus, Ohio.
MatsuriCon is a small family friendly convention that showcases both
American and Japanese popular culture. MatsuriCon has invited Harmony
Gold’s Vice President of Marketing Kevin McKeever for a weekend full of
panels and workshops for fans in the Buckeye State.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

When it came to the actual logistics of delivering the final product,
things worked pretty much the same way in 2006 as it did in 1986: the
lab assembled the final show onto a broadcast quality videotape. That
went to the TV network, and then the lab cut out all the commercial
breaks and sent it the duplication plant for home video. And then, when
all that was done, the licensor made up some presentation materials and a
crappy looking VHS screener copy for overseas publishers to peruse. If
they wanted it, the licensor negotiated a deal with them, signed a
contract, and then called up the lab again. The lab made a copy of the
masters and FedEx-ed them to the publisher. The end.

This system was reliable, but extremely expensive and slow -- two things
that online streaming, with its razor thin margins and
gotta-have-it-now delivery schedule, make completely unacceptable. With episodes sometimes being finished only hours before they air, the only way to do a simulcast
is to send the finished video to the streaming service digitally, as a
file. But adjusting to a new, all-digital way of doing things has been a
steep learning curve for licensors... and an expensive one.

[snip]

The last year has seen a lot of changes. While tape is still used for
backup and archival, many licensors are now quite capable of sending a
broadcast quality file over the internet. But they still occasionally
need to use professional video gear or bring in outside people to help
with technical things, and every time they do, it costs money.

How much money? Most anime these days is mastered on a tape format
called HD-CAM. The price of a single recorder starts at US$45,000.

Friday, March 9, 2012

The 2012 Robotech Convention
Tour returns to the Buckeye state for MasturiCon in Columbus, Ohio.
MatsuriCon is a small family friendly convention that showcases both
American and Japanese popular culture. MatsuriCon has invited Harmony
Gold’s Vice President of Marketing Kevin McKeever for a weekend full of
panels and workshops for fans in the Buckeye State.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Anime News Network has posted Part II of their anime and the economy. Part II focuses on the impact of home video on the anime industry. The article begins with the differences between the North Amercian and Japanese home video market.

To a Westerner, the Japanese DVD market seems horribly overpriced.
With the average disc running over ¥7,000 (US$92) and only containing
2-4 episodes of a series, the cost of collecting a single show can
easily run several hundred dollars -- more than many American fans spend
in a single year.

The prices actually stem from a business practice we used to have in
America, too: rental pricing. Basically, back in the dawn of the home
video business, the industry was constructed in a way where "niche"
releases were only meant to sell a few thousand copies, mostly to video
rental shops. Prices were high (typically $89.95 in America), but video
shops benefited from having a wide and semi-exclusive selection of
movies that normal people would never pay for. At those prices, only a
few thousand sales could mean over a million dollars of revenue.
Initially, video industry people didn't think there was much of a market
in selling to collectors.

But the fans proved them wrong. Otaku
of all kinds (not just anime fans) started buying the videotapes and
laserdiscs, and they bought them at those high prices that were intended
just for video stores. There was no reason to lower it. In fact, there
were a few experiments to drop the price to a more affordable amount,
but that usually resulted in a slight increase in sales -- not enough to
make up for the drop in revenue.

Once again, the information in this series is outstanding and makes it a must read!

Toynami's
critically-acclaimed production run of the Masterpiece Beta Fighter,
with ruggedly engineered joints, is back in stock at Robotech.com at the
special price of only $129.99! This mecha, which was the honorary Invid
butt-kicker of the Robotech series, is even designed to linked up with
the Masterpiece Alpha Fighter (sold separately).

Robotech.com customers also get an exclusive "pilot data" card containing stats and background info about Rand!

Anime News Network has started a new multi part series on the business of anime. Here is an excerpt from part 1.

It used to be, back in the 80s when Japan was flush with money, a company would just decide to make a one- or two-part OAV. They'd throw a few hundred thousand dollars at an animation production company, and the production company would haphazardly churn out an OAV.
They'd release it on video, a few thousand rental shops across Japan
would buy copies, and the show would turn a tidy profit. Or if a longer
series seemed possible, the TV networks would pay most of the cost, and
support the show with commercials.

Those days are long gone. The collapse of Japan's bubble economy hit the
rental market hard, and media companies stopped feeling so adventurous
about making direct-to-video content. The TV networks also drastically
cut the number of shows they're willing to spend money on...

The article is very good and it show how much the industry has changed from the "Golden Age" of the 1980's